The Association for Behavior Analysis International® (ABAI) is a nonprofit membership organization with the mission to contribute to the well-being of society by developing, enhancing, and supporting the growth and vitality of the science of behavior analysis through research, education, and practice.

Dr. Caio Miguel is a Professor of Psychology and Director of the Verbal Behavior Research Laboratory at California State University, Sacramento. He is also an adjunct faculty at Endicott College, MA, and at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. Dr. Miguel has published 60 articles and book chapters on basic and applied research related to verbal behavior and derived stimulus relations. He is the past-editor of The Analysis of Verbal Behavior (TAVB) and currently serves as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis (JABA). He is the recipient of the 2013-2014 award for outstanding scholarly work by the College of Social Sciences and Interdisciplinary Studies at Sacramento State, and the 2014 Outstanding Mentor Award by the Association for Behavior Analysis International. Dr. Miguel is a regular speaker at conferences all over the world.

Abstract: Despite several applied demonstrations of emergent (novel) performances produced through conditional discrimination training, the technology from the stimulus equivalence literature has not yet been well integrated into early intensive intervention curricula. The purpose of this talk is to describe the implications of using equivalence-based instruction for teaching basic and advanced skills to preschool children with autism. We will review the stimulus equivalence paradigm and present examples from different translational and applied studies that used this technology to teach reading, geography, coin identification, activity schedules, and music to children with autism. Implications for practice and directions for future applied research will be discussed.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the presentation, participants will be able to: (1) define different procedures to teach conditional discrimination; (2) discuss the different training structures to produce equivalence classes; (3) program equivalence-based instruction to teach a variety of academic and cognitive skills.